Couple raises awareness, funds for heart conditions

Photo by Gwyneth J. Saunders/The Sun Today Mary Kate and John Boyle sit with Izzy, left, and Madison in their Riverbend home. The Boyles are coordinating the auctions for the American Heart Association's annual Black & White Heart Ball Jan. 28 at the Weston on Hilton Head.

Photo by Gwyneth J. Saunders/The Sun Today Izzy, on the couch, and Madison give each other a nuzzle while Mary Kate and John Boyle try to get them to sit for a family portrait. The Boyles are coordinating the auctions for the American Heart Association's annual Black & White Heart Ball Jan. 28 at the Weston on Hilton Head.

When the American Heart Association Black & White Heart Ball opens its doors Jan. 28, the live and silent auctions will be one couple's way of showing their appreciation for the organization.

"I felt we needed to give back because I wouldn't have had him and our kids wouldn't have had them if it hadn't been for the research they do," said Mary Kate Boyle of her husband, John. The Riverbend couple are coordinating the auctions in their second year of volunteering for the AHA event.

When John first learned he had a rare heart condition, it nearly killed him. Sitting on the edge of the bed on a Wednesday in his Harrisburg hotel room, he told Mary Kate he thought he was going crazy.

"I told her I couldn't breathe, I was sweating and I was sitting there hoping it would go away," he said.

It didn't. In fact, it turned out to be John's second heart incident in five days.

"He had chest pains the Friday before he went away on business and the hospital checked him out," said Mary Kate. "There was nothing there, but the doctor said it was probably stress."

As vice president of Heluva Good Cheese, John certainly did face stress but at 44, a heart condition was not in the picture. And as a trained emergency room, intensive care unit and open heart nurse, Mary Kate was no stranger to heart attacks.

At the hospital

In her office in Syracuse, N.Y., a colleague heard the conversation from Mary Kate's side, got on the other office phone, called the Marriott front desk and told the clerk to get an ambulance there and the doctor up to John's room.

In a mad dash at a speed Mary Kate would not reveal, she drove to Harrisburg with only one very short stop literally on the highway to pick up her sister whose husband delivered her to a spot en route.

The closest medical facility was an osteopathic hospital with little in the way of treating cardiac conditions so he was transferred to Harrisburg General Hospital.

"By the time I got there, he was in the 'home tonight' section. We were not in the room 10 minutes before he raised his arm and said maybe it's my shoulder," said Mary Kate. She and her sister — a respiratory therapist — stopped a hospital aide walking past the room wheeling an electrocardiograph machine and hooked him up while telling a nurse to get the doctor there.

"I stood there looking at the EKG and thought 'oh my God, he's having a heart attack'," Mary Kate said. "The doctor came into the room not sure what he was going to do with us but looked at what I saw and that was it."

After a thorough examination, catheters going into his arteries and tests, it was discovered John had coronary artery spasm, a condition that is atypical of normal cardiac patients, said Mary Kate.

The condition causes arteries to kink shut like a kink in a garden hose, the disease is prone to more females than males and there is a 95 percent death rate, John said, because "by the time you know you have it, you're dead. I've only met one person who has it."

Making people aware

John became a research patient at the Mayo Clinic, an exhausting experience he was glad to do but has no wish to repeat. He was of particular interest to doctors because he didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't do drugs and had never even had coffee.

"If not for the advances of technology, I wouldn't be here," he said. "I think in a way we brought some awareness with the people we had touched."

Because heart conditions are harder to see, Mary Kate said it is not spoken about nearly as much as other diseases, such as cancer. She is currently in treatment for a skin cancer that affected a nerve in her face and neck.

"Heart attacks and stroke are the number one killers in women over all cancers, yet you don't hear a lot of people suffering from heart conditions," said John.

"This happened for a reason and you've got to turn everything into a positive," Mary Kate said. "People tell us we are so unlucky. I think we are lucky because we are still here. And we think people see us and learn."

Reaction to learning of John's heart condition was immediate and widespread among their family and friends.

"Everyone — not just our family — everyone immediately made appointments to see their doctors," said John. "We are lucky. We know what we've got to deal with. It's those who do not know they have a heart condition who are in trouble."

IF YOU GO

The American Heart Association Black & White Heart Ball will be at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28 at The Westin Hilton Head Island Resort and Spa. Deas Guys will perform and Don Hite will be on the piano during the Grey Goose hosted martini lounge cocktail hour. Tickets are $200 per person and tables of eight are $2,750. The Westin will offer special rates for attendees. Call 800-WESTIN for details. For tickets or to make a contribution to the AHA, contact Judy Caramello at 422-4542 or judy.t.caramello@heart.org.

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